Modern digital hand held calculators or small desktop computers utilize microprocessors or calculator chips and other discrete electronic devices for their operation. These devices can be damaged or destroyed by electrostatic discharges emanating from the user to the device. These electrostatic discharges can be in the range of many tens of thousands of volts over short periods of time. Typically, these discharges are coupled to the printed circuit board holding the microprocessor chip or other discrete devices by means of capacitive or inductive coupling to the user. Many methods are utilized to protect the electronic components. These methods can include means to deflect or dissipate the electrostatic discharge. As an example, in hand held calculators, housings can be formed of a conductive plastic, or shielded by a metal piece. Some plastics can be made conductive by including conductive material which will dissipate the electrostatic discharges. Of necessity, small hand held calculators or desktop computers have keyboards and display devices. These keyboards and display devices must be inter-connected to the printed circuit board of the calculator or computer. Shields of metallic substances are typically placed about these connectors to prevent any electrostatic discharge from being impressed on the printed circuit board.
Unfortunately, no matter how completely a calculator is shielded, some electrostatic discharge events are impressed by capacitive or inductive means on to some of the traces of the printed circuit board. These electrostatic events can corrupt the computing sequences of the calculator by either corrupting the data or the individual calculating steps being performed by the calculator chip. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a means and an apparatus for preventing corruption of the calculating steps being performed by the calculator chip. It is a further object of this invention to suspend the operation of the calculator chip before an electrolstatic discharge event can impress itself upon the chip.